Category: Storytelling

During the Story session with Jools and Phil, we were tasked to think about the title intro/sequence for our animation. Not a big fan on the title, probably will change it, maybe a play on the word diamond.

During today’s lecture with tasked with looking at each other’s progression through the project through our blogs and work. Here’s what people had to say about my blog, as well as my thoughts on the comments.

Max: Looking good so far, it definitely follows the brief and meets the pitch, there are some minor plot holes I have questions about, but I guess the project is just in that early stage where you just have to wait and see.

Jegor: Good-good, got a lot of stuff to show, can definitely tell that you’re progressing. Research, designs and ideas are on the spot!!!

“From what it looks like, my blog is demonstrating what my idea is and how I’m progressing very clearly, which is great. Plus everyone like my character designs which is nice.”2- Any suggestions you can make for improving my work or workflow? Try and be as specific as possible please.

Nathan: Storyboard could be more clear and structured but you get the jist of what you mean. I think the slap stick comedy will fit in great, look at some leslie Nielsen spy movies, they’ll suit what you’re doing much better in terms of slapstick.

Max: Maybe include a 2d design of a dog, and maybe a floor plan of the building so that we, as an audience, have an idea of how big the whole facility is and maybe relate to the characters in a way.

Jegor: Might do a storyboard and a script

“From the feedback it looks like my blog is lacking a few things from it. Firstly a proper storyboard, this is something that I’ve been wanting to do so the audience fully understands the story, but I’ve been focused on other area of the project to finish it off. I need to find a balance. Secondly the mention of putting a few slapstick examples that I will play with in my animation as a use of research. Fourthly the mention of making a script I’m also a bit decisive on, seen as they’ll be little dialogue in the animation, there isn’t any necessary need for a script, although after I’ve done the storyboard I may need at least a guideline of what the characters are thinking and feeling. And lastly the mention some designs of the dog, although the dog I’m not really designing the dog and instead using a pre-rig I can at least put a post about what rig I’ll use as well as where the dog will be positioned.”3- Looking at all of the blog posts for this project what are your thoughts on how I am documenting this so far? Is it clear what I am attempting, why I am attempting that? Is it clear what I think about these attempts?

Nathan: it’s nice and clear, maybe add some style design research but I think what you’ve got is good.

Max: The blog posts are very detailed and I think you’ve documented your process well enough.

Jegor: Well documented

“The feedback was very useful, I’ve got a clear idea of what I’m doing well in my project as well as what I need to improve on. With the suggestions that I’ve been giving I will most definitely make an effort to complete them.”

I pitched my idea plan to my class, which was a success. A lot of people liked the idea, saying that has a lot of promise, with great potential for various gags and jokes. But there are a few improvements that the class picked up on, that I am going to need to think about.

One of the comments were about my characters, although they’re really good looking characters, they both look exactly the same despite having different coloured gloves. To fix this I decided that Red will have a Red ski mask, and be quite well built, where as Blu will have a Blue ski mask and be a lot skinnier and smaller than Red. Something similar to Laurel and Hardy, who both have different character traits that people can recognise them by.

The other comment was that my story was really fleshed out like it should’ve been. What they meant was that although I had the overall idea, I don’t consider on what will happen and when. So to fix I’ve been spending today just brain storming what will happen during animation, obviously I had the beginning, but I had no idea what the obstacle is and how they would get to the objective. I like the thought off one of y characters having to lower the other one to get the diamond, something similar to the first Mission: Impossible movie, it’ll be a nice gag in itself as well as reference to it.

When I designed the characters I didn’t want to create to human characters like I normally would have done, so I decided to make them aliens. And they look pretty good.

I decided to give Sebastian a big body type, and the Professor a skinny body type. This way I (hopefully) give the impression that Sebastian can look after himself, whereas the Professor can’t (obvioulsy) and has to rely on him most of the time. I’ll have the dynamic pose done by tomorrow ready for the deadline.

Rough draft for Script

I’ve done a rough, incomplete draft of my script. So far so good I’m going to try and implement some of the research I’ve done into the script.

Scene. Sebastian and Prof. Vestergaard are queuing at cinema to watch the recently released animation ‘Bolama’. After losing his body to a recent fight with his enemies, what’s left of his remains is now attached to his butler/subordinate Sebastian, who taking the opportunity of his new position to do something he wants. The professor is not happy.

Professor Vestergaard (P): “HOW DARE YOU DEFY ME!!! I should be back in my laboratory, plotting my revenge, not watching some cliché family film for kids”

Sebastian (S): “I’ve been your subordinate for decades and not once have I had the chance that I wanted to do, and now that you’ve been reduced to nothing more than a head I can finally do the things that I’ve always wanted to do. Besides not all animated films are for children, this one is supposed to have a very good narrative”

P: “I don’t care, I bet it’s just another one of those musical cartoons with a strong female protagonist, which little annoying brats will go crazy for the merchandise, just like the rest in that pitiful genre”

As you can see I’m making good progress on my character I’ve managed to get the body and arms done, and all that’s left to do is the head and hands… except I still need to rig the full character on top of a list of other things I need to do before I start animating. Yeah that’s a lot of things to do in less than 4 weeks, and I don’t plan to have a late submission for the first project of my 2nd year.

So in an attempt to save time and move on with animating, I will be using a pre-rigged character that Andy has shared. I’ve had a little mess around with him to see how well he moves and stuff, and he’s a very easy character to manipulate, and the controllers are very well laid out, so I’ll definitely be using this rig for the animation.

I’ve also been working on the script for the project. So far I’ve created a complete 1st draft and sent it to a lecturer to look at it. They liked the idea, but thought that the structure of the script as well as some of the dialogue could be improved, but overall a good 1st draft. I’m currently working on my second/final (hopefully) draft and once that’s done I’ll be ready to record audio.

So yesterday I had my first lecture with Jools and Phil, which was my first proper lecture of university. During my time I learned about a stop-motion technique called “Pixilation” where live actors are used in to pose for frame-by-frame animations, like the film “The Secret Adventures of TomThumb“which was Directed by Dave Borthwick, a film that I also have recently discovered in Jools and Phil’s lesson. The film from what I’ve seen so far looks creepy looking and looks to be a dark film but a great use of the Pixilation technique which I will certainly use as inspiration for the project that we are to complete.

In this project we are to use the Pixilation technique and create a 30 second piece of animation utilizing the idea of a ‘Stop Trick’ where the camera can be paused between frames where one object can be replaced by another. In or group we managed to come up with a few ideas but we managed to stick with the idea of a character trapping people within a notebook, so far it’s a rough idea but we plan make this a reality and make it our end animation by the deadline.